


All or Nothing

by heydoeydoey



Series: Everything 'verse [26]
Category: Glee
Genre: Adoption, Beth Corcoran - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22791751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: Puck wonders if it’s easier, what Quinn does.
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Noah Puckerman
Series: Everything 'verse [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638469
Kudos: 21





	All or Nothing

“Noah, you have mail,” his mom calls to him as he passes by the kitchen. It’s the first week in June, too late for any college acceptances (not that Puck applied anywhere, but he wouldn’t put it past his mom to try to get him into college without even telling him).

He wanders into the kitchen and takes the envelope she hands him. It’s bigger than he’s expecting, and it’s one of those thicker, cardboardy ones, instead of a paper one. He’d rethink the college acceptance thing, except that his address is handwritten on the front and he remembers all of Kurt’s big acceptance envelopes being typed.

He sort of feels the way Harry Potter feels in the first book, because seriously, who the fuck would be writing to him? Pretty much everybody he talks to regularly either lives in his house or is a Hudmel.

His mother is looking at him suspiciously, like maybe she thinks he’s been ordering sketchy things on the Internet, and it dawns on him that it’s entirely possible the envelope is from some homophobe Lima Loser.

“I’m, uh, gonna open this in my room.” He says, which probably just confirms her fear that he’s doing something shady, but he’d rather not subject her to threats from ignorant assholes if he can help it. He knows from the phone calls that some of these fuckers can be pretty imaginative and he considers throwing the envelope in the trash without opening it. He doesn’t need to keep bringing that poison into his life.

Except there’s also a chance it _isn’t_ hate mail, even if he still has no clue who would write to him. He sits down on his bed and studies the Cincinnati postmark carefully, except it doesn’t help because he can’t think of anybody he knows who lives there. 

With a sigh, he flips the envelope over and slides his thumb under the flap, opening it carefully. Inside the cardboard envelope, there’s another envelope, unsealed this time, and a folded piece of stationery. He unfolds the paper and stares down at the unfamiliar handwriting. He reads the two short paragraphs twice, uncomprehendingly. On a third reading, he manages to catch the words _daughter_ and _photographs_ and dives for the unsealed envelope.

The first picture makes his heart lurch, because he’s looking at himself sitting in a hospital chair, looking exhausted and scared and holding a baby that’s all pink blanket and a dark fuzz of hair. He’s pretty sure it was taken the same day he signed the papers that made Beth Shelby’s and not his.

He flips through the stack of four-by-sixes with shaking hands, barely processing the images. Beth sleeping. Beth crawling. Beth dressed up as a pumpkin for Halloween. Beth sitting in a high chair behind a chocolate-frosted cake with two candles in it.

He knows he pulls out his phone and dials Kurt’s number, but when he hangs up, he can’t remember the conversation. He reads through the letter from Shelby again, trying to understand why this is happening _at all_ , let alone right now.

He’s still switching between the letter and the photos when Kurt sits down on the bed next to him.

“What’s going on?”

In lieu of an explanation, Puck shoves the letter into Kurt’s hands. He doesn’t have the words to explain anyway.

Kurt scans the letter quickly and when he looks up again he breathes, “Noah” and wraps his arms around Puck’s shoulders in a tight hug. Puck hugs him back, maybe a little too tightly from the way Kurt squeaks in surprise. 

“She looks different than I pictured her.” Puck says quietly, turning back to the stack of photos.

He’d always imagined Beth with Quinn’s light eyes, and instead she has the same brown ones he does. She has the same mouth as the rest of the women in his family—a little bit too wide when you look closely, but with a smile that lights up the room. He doesn’t see much of Quinn in her anymore. He wonders if it was even there in the first place, or if it was just wishful thinking on his part.  
  
“She looks like you.” Kurt says, staring down at the picture of Beth and her birthday cake.  
  
“Everybody in the hospital kept saying how much she looked like Quinn.”  
  
Kurt shrugs. “Maybe she did then. But now she’s all Puckerman.”  
  
Puck’s heart jumps up into his throat at the thought, and suddenly he feels like crying. Instead he lets his head rest on Kurt’s shoulder and slides his arm around Kurt’s waist, just holding on. He feels shaky, like he might throw up, and emotionally drained.  
  
“Do you want to get some air?” Kurt offers and Puck nods frantically, wondering how Kurt knew he could feel the walls of his room starting to close in on him. He gathers the photos and the letter and hides them in the drawer of his nightstand. He’s not ready to share this yet. He shoves his feet into flip-flops and follows Kurt down the stairs. Kurt sticks his head into the kitchen to say something quietly to Puck’s mom and then he’s grabbing Puck’s hand and pulling him out the front door.   
  
Kurt drives to Heritage Elementary. It’s the closest to Puck’s house, and the parking lot is totally empty. Puck reaches for the door handle before the car is even in park. He jumps down out of the car and goes to sit on the curb at the edge of the lot, his back to the school’s playground. Kurt takes his time getting out of the Nav, and when he comes to sit, he seems to realise Puck needs a little bit of space and settles himself about a foot away.  
  
“I don’t get it.” Puck says quietly. “Why now?”   
  
Before Kurt says anything or his own brain supplies an answer, Puck’s phone starts ringing in his pocket. He fishes it out and blinks down at the screen. He considers sending the call to voicemail, but he can’t. Not after this morning.  
  
“Quinn?” He says, and Kurt glances over at him in surprise.  
  
“Did you get pictures?” Quinn demands, and her voice is sharp, not the soft way she used to talk to him, before Beth.  
  
“Yeah.” Puck says, not offering anything further.  
  
“Tell her I don’t want them.” He hears the click that means she hung up. He flips his phone shut and feels like hurling it as far as he can across the parking lot. He doesn’t; he shoves it back in his pocket instead. There are so many things he wants to say to Quinn, starting with how much he hates her for pretending sophomore year never happened.  
  
“Are you okay?” Kurt ventures cautiously. Puck wants to scream, throw things, hit something, _break_ something, cry the sort of tears that make your stomach hurt.   
  
He shakes his head. No, he’s not okay and he knows Kurt can’t fix. Kurt must know it too, because when Puck looks over at him, Kurt has his arms crossed tight, holding himself together like maybe that will keep Puck from shattering apart.  
  
“I wanted her so bad.” Puck says and his voice sounds strange. Far away, separate from him. “I thought about keeping her even though Quinn didn’t want her.” Puck’s never told anyone that, never shared the plan that sprang up in his head when Quinn asked him if he wanted to keep her. He would have dropped out of school, probably. He would work his ass off, bagging groceries or waiting tables or both. He would never leave Lima. He would never have Kurt. But he’d have Beth.   
  
He takes the hand Kurt offers him, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight. Kurt squeezes back, and it eases some of the pressure building up in Puck’s chest. He knows he should feel…grateful or something to Shelby for sending him pictures. And part of him is. He’s a little bit proud too, because his daughter is beautiful and that’s only down to him and Quinn. But he doesn’t know what happens next, doesn’t even know how to think of what the next step might be. He’s been fighting against this for so long now that anything else feels strange.  
  
“This fucking sucks.” He says, his voice sounding hollow and sad. Kurt squeezes his hand a little tighter. There’s no winning in this situation; no matter what he does, Beth is never going to be his. He wonders if it’s easier, what Quinn does. He can’t imagine how it could be, but he guesses that’s the difference between him and Quinn. They already faced the all or nothing choice, and he lost his chance to pick all. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want something in-between, no matter how much it hurts.   
  
  



End file.
